Anti-fraud measures played a huge part as well both in Hungary and Serbia. Groups of volunteers hung around voting stations, spotting and reporting irregularities. Sometimes getting threatened by burly men who brought dozens of impoverished people who sold their votes in vans and stuff like that. They’re the unsung heroes of these elections.
I just listened to a podcast which mentioned that regimes that cheat during the elections can only mobilise a fixed amount of people. If twice the number of people go to vote, they might be able to mobilise more, but definitely not twice as much. Ergo the more people go to vote the least power cheaters have to skew the results.
This was part of the reason Orbán could be finally voted out of power.
GO VOTE. NO MATTER WHAT.
(It was also quite funny to watch Orbán as he was explaining to his voters how the voting system was set up to inflate the difference. He himself had set up all these rules back when it favoured him.)
There haven’t been many English-language articles on the topic - I’m trying not to be paranoid about it, but it crossed my mind that it’s a bit suspicious. With Trump’s history and interference intentions, I think the importance of citizen preparation and organization cannot be overstated.
But you know what? The documentary the Hungarian volunteers made to raise awareness is available with both English and Finnish subtitles on YouTube! It’s a bit long, but it might be worth a watch!
Anti-fraud measures played a huge part as well both in Hungary and Serbia. Groups of volunteers hung around voting stations, spotting and reporting irregularities. Sometimes getting threatened by burly men who brought dozens of impoverished people who sold their votes in vans and stuff like that. They’re the unsung heroes of these elections.
I just listened to a podcast which mentioned that regimes that cheat during the elections can only mobilise a fixed amount of people. If twice the number of people go to vote, they might be able to mobilise more, but definitely not twice as much. Ergo the more people go to vote the least power cheaters have to skew the results.
This was part of the reason Orbán could be finally voted out of power.
GO VOTE. NO MATTER WHAT.
(It was also quite funny to watch Orbán as he was explaining to his voters how the voting system was set up to inflate the difference. He himself had set up all these rules back when it favoured him.)
I didn’t know they organized to this extent. That’s awesomey thanks for the link.
~50k volunteers worked all around the country to stop election fraud
There haven’t been many English-language articles on the topic - I’m trying not to be paranoid about it, but it crossed my mind that it’s a bit suspicious. With Trump’s history and interference intentions, I think the importance of citizen preparation and organization cannot be overstated.
I hadn’t read anything about this in Finnish either. What languages have there been articles in?
To be fair, Finnish is very hard to read for me as a German. I couldn’t have read it as well.
I’ve read a few in Hungarian. Here’s one about the Hungarian election, here’s another about the Serbian election. Maybe machine translation can help?
But you know what? The documentary the Hungarian volunteers made to raise awareness is available with both English and Finnish subtitles on YouTube! It’s a bit long, but it might be worth a watch!